This blog is an interactive space for the documentation of anthropology 395, an intensive summer museum collection based field school at the University of Victoria. The course is centred around a recently acquired collection of aboriginal children's art by the Maltwood Art Gallery and Museum. Students' work to develop an exhibition of this artwork that will be shown at the Legacy Gallery in 2011 in downtown Victoria.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

Setting the Stage

Today the class was honored to have Dr. Robert Dalton, of the University of Victoria's Art Education Program, visit and discuss children's art. From the perspective of an art educator, Dr. Dalton's lessons helped to place Aller's collection of children's paintings in the wider context of art education at the time these paintings were created. The role that teaching methods, curricula, and lesson plans might have played in the creation of the paintings has taken on greater significance in terms of understanding this collection, as well as in thinking about the themes that will shape the exhibition.

Research into these matters has led the students to split up tasks: some listen to recorded interviews with Aller, organizing them by subject matter; some are reading through Aller's personal archives, containing notes, letters, and journal entires; and some have begun to sort through the vast collection of paintings to select which ones will be considered for the exhibition, careful to choose paintings from a variety of locations, age-groups, and painting styles and techniques.